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I'm trying to perform a simple buffer on GeoJSON file using Python script. I am able to do it on a shapefile using Python script and on GeoJSON using QGIS fix distance buffer tool but I can't figure out how to do it on GeoJSON using Python script. I read many posts on it but none of them include working solely on GeoJSON. I also know that it is possible to convert GeoJSON to .shp but I need to work only with GeoJSON files.

My code that works for .shp file:

from osgeo import ogr

ds = ogr.Open(r'C:\vector files\tryyy.shp', 1)
in_lyr = ds.GetLayer()
out_lyr = ds.CreateLayer('new_buff44',in_lyr.GetSpatialRef(),ogr.wkbPolygon)
out_lyr.CreateFields(in_lyr.schema)
out_defn = out_lyr.GetLayerDefn()
out_feat = ogr.Feature(out_defn)
bufferDist = -0.00015075

for in_feat in in_lyr:

    geom = in_feat.geometry()
    out_feat.SetGeometry(geom)
    for in_feat in in_lyr:

        geom = in_feat.geometry().Buffer(bufferDist)
        out_feat.SetGeometry(geom)
        for i in range(in_feat.GetFieldCount()):
            value = in_feat.GetField(i)
            out_feat.SetField(i, value)
        out_lyr.CreateFeature(out_feat)

del ds
print "finish"

When I change the file from shp to geojson in the org.Open line I get:

NoneType' object has no attribute 'CreateFields'

I thought that if I read vector file as OGR datasource object then it doesn't matter which format is the original vector file.

Can someone help me understand what I should change so that the code will work on GeoJSON files?

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  • The error seems to be with creating the output file not reading the GeoJSON. I would check if in_lyr has a spatial ref
    – Ian Turton
    Sep 4, 2017 at 7:48
  • 1
    What is GDAL version you are using? Only starting with GDAL 2.1.0, the GeoJSON driver supports updating existing GeoJSON files (gdal.org/drv_geojson.html). Sep 4, 2017 at 7:51
  • I use gdal 2.1.4
    – user88484
    Sep 4, 2017 at 19:56

1 Answer 1

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You don't need ogr here, nor PyQGIS. GeoJSON is a text format and you can use Shapely for buffering

Read the GeoJSON file

import json
from shapely.geometry import shape
with open('test.geojson') as geojson_file:    
     data = json.load(geojson_file)

Now data is a Python dictionary

print data.keys()
[u'crs', u'type', u'features']
# number of features in the GeoJSON file
print len(data['features'])
12

Buffer the features geometry with Shapely

for feat in features:
    # transform to Shapely geometry (shape) and buffer
    result = shape(feat['geometry']).buffer(10)

And you can save the result. But the easiest solution is to use GeoPandas

Read the GeoJSON file

import geopandas as gpd
test = gpd.read_file('G:/test.geojson')
test.head()
                               geometry                id  prof
  0  LINESTRING (98343.63152166376 127733.349299224...  0  -300
  1  LINESTRING (102765.6654736941 129425.499969790...  1  -350
  2  LINESTRING (102462.0707786608 129444.182720253...  2  -300
  3  LINESTRING (108072.8138189411 127543.072867221...  3  -300
  4  LINESTRING (98944.76521158419 128898.571228531...  4  -300

Create the buffer file

buffer = test.copy()
buffer.geometry = buffer['geometry'].buffer(10)
buffer.head()
                                     geometry          id  prof
  0  POLYGON ((98338.20413879973 127724.9644054933,...  0  -300
  1  POLYGON ((102768.850749055 129434.9713033329, ...  1  -350
  2  POLYGON ((102322.0772607171 129216.1646869608,...  2  -300
  3  POLYGON ((108079.2937964466 127533.9139139283,...  3  -300
  4  POLYGON ((99110.01696110952 129288.1265286858,...  4  -300

Save the result

buffer.to_file('buffer.geojson')
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  • Thanks gene, the geopandas solution works great. You just forgot to add the geojson driver in the last command: buffer.to_file('buffer.geojson', driver = 'GeoJSON'). Otherwise it will save it as shp file.
    – user88484
    Sep 4, 2017 at 19:25
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    buffer(10) what is the unit of this 10? meters? miles? degrees? Oct 29, 2019 at 15:49

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